I don't submit to this group often, but this post is related to fatherhood (see below, under the first half of the post) so I think it might fit.

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It's now eleven days past my birthday and I figure that's enough time to give for people to leave comments. As you may have seen, I promised to divide up 46 shares of HSBI to everyone who left a comment and answered a specific question, one HSBI for every year of my birthday in this post.

Unfortunately I didn't get 46 comments, but still got quite a few, so thank you everyone who left a kind one.

Of all the comments, five chose to enter the birthday giveaway by answering my question. So, @go-kyo @gtg @kriszrokk @stekene @xrayman, the 46 HSBI are yours! Hmm...but how to divide. Just to make it easy I think I'll hold one back and divide up 45, so that means 9 each!

Thanks guys!

So that is my gift to all of you. Now I thought I'd share a few photos of one of my gifts: the card I got from my oldest son. He loves to draw, so he drew me a birthday card. It's kind of unique in that there is no cake or mention of birthday, but instead he gave me some great images.

I don't know why he picked the Flash. I've never shown him any American comic books or superhero movies. But maybe he learned about Flash from one of his friends at school.

He knows one of my favorite games is Mega Man 2 and that my favorite stage is Woodman's stage. Actually I rarely play it. When the Famicon mini (the Japanese name for the NES) came out a few years ago I bought it as a way of introducing my kids to the games I grew up with. They loved the system and both still play it a lot. Anyway, through this system, they discovered I love Megaman 2 and Woodman's stage music.

And another from the Famicon mini. My all time favorite game is Zelda II. I was in the 4th grade I think. My parents promised to buy me an NES if I got straight A's on my report card from school. So confident was I that I'd earn it, I walked to the store and used my own money to buy Zelda II. It sat in my sock drawer for months until the report card came and I did indeed earn the system. Needless to say, I played the bejesus out of the game. When I bought the Famicon Mini, it was the first game I played. It's a common joke between me and my kids that I think the new Zelda games on their Switch are lousy and that Zelda II is the only good one.

And now... I feel the urge to go play some Zelda II. Unfortunately it's a working day. But maybe I'll just play some of the music in the background.

By the way, you may be familar with that one if you are of a certain age, but did you know the Japanese version is quite different? It had access to some extra sound channels that didn't come over to the American or European versions of the system. This is now the version I hear the most with the Famicon mini, so it's grown on me.

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.